WASHINGTON — President Trump on Monday demanded that Iran compensate families of Americans killed in attacks Tehran has backed over decades, matching Iran's own demand for war reparations as a condition for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
The reciprocal claim, posted on Truth Social hours after Iran added compensation to a six-point list of demands Saturday, effectively closes off the negotiating track the White House had held open through the weekend. Trump told Axios the United States is only "semi-negotiating" with Iran, a shift from the low-key posture he struck two days earlier.
Trump's demand
"I am likewise demanding compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts," Trump wrote. He cited the 17 U.S. sailors killed in the 2000 USS Cole bombing and what he called the "52,000 that have been killed in the last five months." In a separate post, Trump said Iran was also "responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza."
Both sides dig in
At the White House on Monday, Trump described the U.S. naval blockade as a "steel wall" and "infallible." "We control the strait 100%," he told reporters. "Now, can they make trouble? Yeah, they can make trouble, but they're broke, they have no money." Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei answered that "a maritime blockade is not a diplomatic action that we can lift through diplomacy."
Oil markets read the exchange as another step away from a deal. Benchmark crude contracts rose about 5 percent Monday and more than 2 percent Tuesday, with Brent nearing $90 a barrel. Trump extended a Jones Act waiver for 90 days beginning Aug. 17 to keep foreign-flagged tankers moving fuel and fertilizer between U.S. ports.
The munitions problem
The hardened U.S. posture obscures a Pentagon inventory problem that could blunt Washington's leverage. Retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery told Fox News the Iran conflict burned through nearly all Army Tactical Missile System and Precision Strike Missile stocks in five months and drained Patriot and THAAD reserves. "The problem is 25 years of not buying enough munitions," Montgomery said. The Army's fiscal 2027 budget quadruples PAC-3 MSE interceptor targets to 13,773 units, but a Heritage Foundation analysis pegs rebuilding adequate stockpiles at nine to more than 80 years.
The security ring around the president has tightened as well. The Washington Post and New York Times reported last week that Trump was smuggled off the NATO summit in Ankara on July 8 in an elevated catering truck after intelligence flagged a credible Iranian plot to strike his plane; a decoy Air Force One flew with reporters and staff aboard. White House communications director Steven Cheung, declining to confirm the swap, said "there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him."
Iran's Supreme National Security Council on Saturday listed additional conditions alongside compensation — an end to threats, an end to the war, lifting of the naval blockade, U.S. troop withdrawal from the region, sanctions relief and release of frozen assets. None have moved.